Tuesday, August 31, 2010

In my crusade to get some loose ends finished up, here is my latest batch of easy reinforcements.

Here are some Copplestone miniatures that I still had laying around. Don't ask me why I didn't get these guys painted sooner as I like them. A couple of these guys look suspiciously like Jules and Vincent from Pulp Fiction. Especially Jules.

Here are some more of the clix minis. These are Vampire types, haven't quite figured out for sure yet.

Some miscellaneous Werewolf types. They are just in time too because Nick is going through a Werewolf phase at the moment.

Here are some random wierdos. I like the guy with the huge hammer, I'm sure we'll be crossing paths at some point.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

We tried out our first substantial fleet action today with our new rules set "It's Warm Work". While I wouldn't exactly consider myself a land lubber as I have spent some time at sea and never get sick etc.. I know pretty much nothing about ships, and sailing ships especially. However, incompetence has never stopped me before and I love looking at and gaming with little ships! So here we go with a little batrep of our first larger game.
The miniatures are just the Wizards Pirates pocket models.
Another first today is my batrep format. Some of the guys have been using a comic book format for their batreps and I have been intrigued and insanely jealous to boot. So today I finally got off my arse and downloaded the trial to see how it goes. Right off the bat I like the fact that I can get everything laid out and organized before posting. If there are no unforeseen hiccups, I will probably go to this format for everything for an organizational tool if nothing else.

Ok, so maybe I'm a hopeless gaming maniac, but I do have a lot of fun. I've been itchin' ta git some ol' west gamin' in fer quite a spell now, so here's I go. Ok, enough of the silly redneck dialogue.

First things first, I'm going to need some appropriate terrain. First stop on my travels was Whitewash City by Eric Hotz. I've been eyeing these buildings for a long time and have just been looking for an excuse to get some. The pioneer set which includes about a dozen buildings plus some extras is only 10.00 right now at the download places like RPG Now so I jumped on it. I think it took me about 4 hours to put all these together but that was not constant time. I just drop a little glue and walk away and do them at my leisure. These Whitewash City buildings are pretty nice and they are actually quite easy to build. I'd say they are definitely easier than a lot of the WWG stuff I have built. And I'm not taking anything away from WWG, they still have the best stuff out there, they just don't have old west that I am aware of. They really need to get in on this.

All of the buildings come with floor plans for all floors. I agonized for quite some time on how I was going to approach the playability aspect of these puppies. Normally, they build the buildings with the roofs affixed and then when you need to play inside you just pick up the entire building and use the floor plan. After taking a vote with the family, they decided that we should be able to play the insides with the building in place as much as possible. I even thought about double printing them and making the interior walls the same as the exterior but finally decided against it as it would take a lot more ink and time to build. My friend Vampifan would certainly have done this and more, but I'm no Vampifan; just a nut who is impatient to start gaming.

Anyone who knows me, knows already that I am a huge Two Hour Wargames fan. I've been reading the Six Gun Sound rules and they look really good and have me inspired to get this project into gaming mode ASAP. They really lay out a lot of things in detail and are heavily campaign oriented. Since I'm already very familiar with the Chain Reaction System in general I decided to stay the course. I will hopefully have some Wild West batreps coming up in the near future.

My Son and I we were getting ready to play a skirmish on our new Starship Deckplan when my Daughter suggested that we go vertical instead of laying the different floors out to the sides. She even suggested using skewers we use for grilling with. So just for a test run we tried it out and I think I like the idea of laying the ships out vertically. This is not the most stable solution, using the skewers that is, but I will probably make up some painted styrofoam supports to use in their place.

By laying the ships out vertically, you get a better impression of what the ship would look like in action. When we have multiple ships performing boarding actions it will be a lot less confusing also.

I think I will bring the height of the decks down a little as well, just enough room to get my hands in confortably.

Some various Zombie/horror figs that are great for filling out some hordes. The Grey may not fit in but don't be surprised if you see him lumbering around in one of my Zombie games sometime. He might make a good plot item. In this batch there is no doubt that the Mime is my favorite. He is a truly scary chap.

Next up are some Cowboys from the Heroscape game. These minis are not so cheap but since we play Heroscape anyway you will often see some HS figures in my games. They have a lot of good stuff for a lot of different periods. Heroscape minis come painted and ready to go and run in the 2.00 range per fig.

And here are some Heroscape Woodland Indians. Not bad looking at all and I didn't have to do anything but pull them out of the box.

So, if you don't have a lot of time you still have no excuses not to game, there are plenty of cost effective goodies out there!

Saturday, August 28, 2010

That is the title of a rules set for age of sail that I recently came across. There are a lot of good rules for age of sail, but most of them can be quite complex or heavy in record keeping and we were looking for something lighter to play. IIWW has a representation for all the most important aspects of a sailing game, but keeps things quite simple. Everything is summed up for easy reference in a single page reference sheet which is something I really like.
The game covers fouled and grappled ships and rules for drifting.
Burning hulks and drifting wrecks.
The movement rules use a simple wheel and turn system based on wind direction vs. ship class. It is easy but the game makes you think about maneuver and getting into position.
The shooting system is very simple and yet gives a feel for manpower considerations in fire fights.
Boarding actions are fast paced and streamlined with just enough influence from ship size and tactics to make it feel right.
Things like crew quality and National doctrine are also addressed in a simple streamlined fashion.
Critical Hits and ships fate add some uncertainty to the game.
At the end of the day, It is Warm Work is not any more difficult to play than Wizards Pirates game but it is much more satisfying because you feel like you are getting a pretty decent representation of naval tactics. This is a great game for playing large fleet actions when you don't want to spend your time thumbing through rules books and just want to play.
When we want excruciating detail we go with Heart of Oak, but for easy gaming I like It is Warm Work and heartily recommend it.

In a game we played today, using Pirates CCG ships, Gabe and myself are trying to waylay a Spanish treasure ship before it makes port. Gabe is trying to board but can't get his party over in time while I am raking the Spaniard from the bow.

Nick and AJ's Pirate ships docking for a scavenging expedition.

Still trying to get that Spaniard to strike it's colors.

The Spanish treasure ships breaks the grapple and tries to run. Gabe and I are in hot pursuit.

The Spaniard lumbers against the wind and our fast ships catch him up again. This time he's not getting away.

Later this day, Nick, AJ, and myself get into a firefight. Nick is raking AJ on the right while I rake Nick on the left. The two crippled ships managed to make it to port.

I have a ton of these Pirates CCG ships that I scored a while back dirt cheap. I had always wanted to get some of those nice little lead ships but these are working very nicely and I don't have to paint them so I'm thinking we will just stick with them.

I finally got around to basing some of my Horror Clix minis. These minis are dirt cheap (I've scored these as low as .10 cents) and come painted and ready to go so they are a great way to get some extra Zeds on the table. Some are really nice and some are not so great, but easy is easy. In this batch, my favorite is the Zombie ventriloquist; hands down. I just based a few more that I will post soon along with some additional clix minis that Vampifan sent to me. So if you need some warm, dead bodies on the table fast, this is a great way to start.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Here is my next try at a star ship deck plan. This one has 4 levels. Cargo, Main, Medical, and Cockpit. I think I will try to make some spacers so we can try playing this vertically. The first little ship I did is off in the corner for comparison. There are others that are way bigger than this one too. I have no idea how I would cut and trim it in one piece, probably won't be able to.

It looks like for the time being my original thoughts of going 3D with this are out the window as I have no way to store more large game pieces at the moment. At least not if I want to stay married. Plus we want to make a variety of ships including larger ones so storage is a huge consideration.

I'm going to try to make some playable ships for Nicks sci-fi games. I've started with some deck plans and am planning to build some ship structure around them to make it more interesting.
I left a question topic at post apoc about this, if anyone has any suggestions please let me know!
http://s1.zetaboards.com/Post_Apoc_Wargames/topic/3720863/1/#new

Saturday, August 21, 2010

I finally got around to painting and basing more stuff. I still had quite a bit of lead laying about which got sluffed off because we were gaming so much but with this bloody hot Summer I'm finding more time to work on minis. Most of these are from the outstanding line of minis from Copplestone which is hands down my favorite mini maker. The castings are great quality, and real fat and heavy plus he makes a nice assortment of all kinds of cool stuff. That being said, my painting skills are far from being able to do his work justice, but they are certainly serviceable.

The Men in Black. I love these guys! Just think Mr. Smith from the Matrix. I'd like to get more of these but Copplestone has a bunch of KGB types that I want to get first. Men in Black can be used in all sorts of situations.

Here is Lieutenant Raynon D'Parade and his Elite squad of shotgun wielding enforcers. Now I have even more firepower for my futuristic police force and plan on having a lot of fun with these bad boys. I have already decided that Raynon is Rep 6 and his lads are all Rep 5 so look out bad guys!

More Gangers to add to my ever growing collection. I love these Ganger types because they are so versatile and random looking.

The Bikers. I love these minis a lot as well. As with my Gangers, I wait until we start playing to name the figures. During play the minis always seem to name themselves. This bunch looks like a bunch of really competent head bashers to me.

Desperados. If these guys aren't up to no good, then I'm a monkey. I don't see these vile types ever filling in as Survivors though.

A few more miscellaneous babes to add to my collection. They make good cannon fodder for "whats inside" encounters.

Here is a couple of stragglers from my Cold War minis. This is another company I like a lot and where I got most of my Zeds from. The castings are a bit thin but very creative. You can tell right off that the lad on the left is from Texas by the number three on his shirt.

I've also managed to base a bunch of my clix figures which I will post soon. I'm off to play some more Wings of War campaign at the University so the minis will have to wait!

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Just a few pics from a weekend Nuts! game. I finally got a chance to try out my new Marines in a 1946 scenario and just wanted to see what they look like in photos.

My sniper with the scoped M1 was without a doubt the star of the game. Combined with a high vantage point like this tower, this guy is a real pain in the arse. Sucks that my photo turned out crappy.
Nuts! is a game that really takes advantage of elevation by the way. It is all about field of fire.

Jil's Russians working overtime again. I love these minis.

That sniper was really making his lads work hard for every inch of advance. Lots of time spent ducking back.

And of course, there were some Zeds skulking about the place.

The Russkies bringing up a Maxim under fire.

Marines dealing with some arrant Zeds. One thing I like about the Marines is they have shotguns available.

Russians playing leap frog.

The Russians run into a lone Brit paratrooper straggler courtesy of my Risk & Rewards cards from ATZ.

The paratrooper didn't hit anything with his spray and pray but he manages to scare off the Russians momentarily.

Jil's Russians moving through his home made terrain. It just looks so cool!

Speaking of being on the move, the Marines will need to scoot soon. Zeds are becoming abundant.

What Miniatures Gaming is All About:

This quote was taken from a brilliant post by John Paul on the THW yahoo group.This is exactly what this hobby is all about!

The first time a new kid comes to game:

What? There's no screen? How do you... You mean I have to face my opponent and even have to talk to them. (You got a nice house here.)Heh.... What's that? Dice? How quaint. (Sure, I'll take a Coke.) Coollittle figures. You know, I've heard about army men from movies... YOU PAINT THEM YOURSELF?! (You do a good job, I could never do that.) Nice dollhouses. Hey, can I bring my Hot Wheels?

No No Go left!I think we should run through the house. (Yea, my teacher said the same thing in my class. Who do you have?) Cool, I want to loot the body... YEA! I got a shotgun. (I'd say the scene with Shelob was the scariest.) Wow, I almost died. Thanks for saving me. Why are you laughing. No, You can't have my shotgun. I guess with that pistol aimed at my face, you are going to get that shotgun. Just watch your back. (Well, my favorite show is in an hour, but I can record it. No, I'll stay.) How come we shoot the zombies up and we always get more and Jake is beating them with a baseball bat and he gets none? (Stop throwing popcorn at me...Steve...[giggle]...Don't do it Steve... [giggle-haahaaa]) Is that a grenade? OOOHH. How did I know you werein the explosion's spread.... Do I have enough room to scoot over and pick up the shotgun from his mangled body? How many more zombies did that bring in? (You got great parents. I didn't know you could play this with them.) Awesome. I just became zombie chow!

Well, that was cool! er... do you... when do you play this again? (You guys are cool to hang around with.)Can I get one of those miniatures with a shotgun.I love shotguns! Can you paint it for me? You'll show me how to paint it? Cool!

What really happens to youth when they venture forth from Video Games andget sucked into the dark vortex of wargaming. : )

John Paul

About Me

I figured it was time to change my profile as I have completely evolved as a gamer the past couple of years. I no longer describe myself as "avid" but just plain sick. Ever since getting into skirmish gaming things in my miniatures world have been just plain awesome. Glancing through my blog you will quickly figure out that I love it all; any period, any scale, and there is no telling what you will find here from day to day. My kids and their friends like to play and even my Wife will game from time to time which is kind of the ultimate achievement for any gamer. I'm blessed with fellow gamers in the Houston area which are as fanatic as myself and our biggest problem is not when we will play, but what we will play. You can find me knocking about many miniatures related sites around the web as Veloci, Sturmflieger, or LTL Dad.